The Trouble With Hawke
by R2s Muse
Summary: Inquisitor Cadash has finally started to get Skyhold running smoothly when Marian Hawke moves in and brings her inimitable style of doing things with her. Cullen x f!Hawke; hints of f!Cadash x Varric; Continues after Fool's Errand, but also stands alone.


**The Trouble with Hawke**

 **By R2s Muse**

 **A/N:** This drabble takes place during DA:I just after the Inquisition moves to Skyhold and Hawke shows up to help. It is also set after the epilogue of Fool's Errand, but doesn't necessarily require any prior knowledge of that story. f!Hawke x Cullen; some hinted f!Cadash x Varric

* * *

 _9:41_  
 _Skyhold_  
 _Ferelden_

Malika Cadash knew something was off the moment she stepped into the War Room. Although the sun streamed merrily through the tall windows to splash across the War Table, her advisors each stood back in the shadows. Cassandra sat on a nearby bench, elbows on her knees and one hand covering her eyes. Leliana was on her feet, glowering dully at the strategic markers on the map stretched across the table. There was a slightly greenish cast to her pale complexion. Josephine, normally bright and talkative, was smothering a yawn.

Rushing in from behind Malika was an uncharacteristically late Cullen who mumbled an apology and finished tucking his tunic into his wide belt.

"Perhaps I should have set a later time for our meeting?" Malika said in a dry voice, but the others all disagreed in a chorus of half-hearted protestations.

"My apologies, Inquisitor," Cullen began. "I'm afraid it was a rather late evening for, um, some of us. It won't happen again."

"Some of us? Is this why I also couldn't find Varric this morning?"

"That could very well be the case."

"The amount I saw Varric drink last night should be enough to put him in a coma for the next week," Leliana said, turning slightly greener.

"We should all be in a coma for the next week," Cassandra said in a gravelly voice from behind her hand.

Malika had to fight a smile and said in a stern voice, "I'm surprised at how little it takes to incapacitate the Inquisition. Do I have Bull to thank for this?"

Cassandra mumbled something from behind her hand that Malika didn't catch. "What?"

"Hawke," Josephine supplied instead.

"Hawke?" Malika said in surprise.

Leliana nodded glumly. "Hawke."

Cassandra lowered her hands at last, revealing bloodshot, bleary eyes and an incongruous half-smile. "Hawke," she confirmed. "I could not very well say no to her!" Then, in a slightly reverent voice that Malika had never heard from the seeker before, Cassandra added, "But, I did beat her at arm wrestling."

Malika looked to Cullen for an explanation and he flushed. "It was a welcome. Of sorts. At the new tavern. She wanted to meet the rest of the Inquisition now that she has joined me . . . erm, us. It won't happen again."

Malika sighed. "Why don't you all go sleep it off. There's nothing that can't wait 'til tomorrow."

"Thank you, Inquisitor," Josephine said while stifling a yawn, and the others followed suit. Malika shook her head and forgot about the incident until a few days later.

She approached the door of the tavern, glancing sourly at the new sign swinging above it declaring for all to see that it had been named _The Herald's Rest_ in her honor. She slipped inside, hoping to avoid undo attention, but need not have bothered.

The taproom was filled to bursting with people jostling each other, shoulder and shoulder, and the din was almost overwhelming. From her height, Malika could literally see nothing but a sea of tall, human backs. She skirted the edge of the room toward the bar and finally broke free, pressing up against the bar where Cabot rubbed a glass with a white cloth, gaze on something on the other side of the room. He flicked a glance at her, gave her his usual charismatic grunt and said, "Inquisitor," before turning back to watch . . . something.

With a sigh of annoyance, she ducked under the bar and hopped up onto a crate. Once she had a clear line of sight she could also hear better. Standing on another crate near the stairs in the center of the room, Varric was addressing the gathering and the cadence of his voice, the roll of emotion and warmth in his words, told her immediately he was in storytelling mode.

Like the rest of the tavern goers, she found herself under Varric's spell and leaning in to hear every word, a gripping blow-by-blow flight with a horde of darkspawn. The hero in his story performed astounding feats that had the room cheering, especially when she defeated an ogre single-handedly. It was not until the hero started negotiating with a dragon that Malika realized she was listening to Varric's _Tale of the Champion_.

Now she understood the surreptitious glances the crowd threw at one distant corner of the room where she could just see Cullen's blond head above the mob. And why Cullen's eyes glowed with pride as he looked down at someone sitting next to him.

 _Hawke_.

Malika looked back at Varric and saw a similar warmth in his eyes as he told his story. She knew that he had been a participant in the tale, but suddenly his reverence for Hawke was writ large. Malika hopped off her crate and navigated her way back out of the tavern, wondering what she had gotten herself into by inviting the Champion to Skyhold.

A week later, she was starting to have a better idea.

"You asked to see me, Your Eminence?" Varric said, walking unhurriedly across the weed choked garden to where Malika stood talking with the Skyhold foreman.

"Thank you, Sherice, that will be all," she said to the foreman with a nod before turning to the approaching dwarf. "Varric, do you know how many roof tiles the Inquisition received in our latest shipment?"

Varric blinked a few times and she could see the wheels turning in his mind, trying to anticipate her point. "Is this a trick question?" he finally asked, eyes crinkling up at the corners.

"The answer is: exactly enough for the stables and the garden upgrade."

"I see," he said, his tone indicating that he did not.

"Would you happen to know where a significant portion of those tiles have gone instead? Along with that roofer, Berinole, and his workers?"

"No. But, I suspect you're going to tell me?" he said, smiling idly and clasping his hands behind his back in a way that emphasized his broad chest.

"Sherice says Berinole was reassigned, by _someone_ , to Cullen's tower." She kept her tone even, as was her habit since no one needed to know what she was really feeling. Even Varric.

Varric frowned. "I thought Cullen had decided to just leave his tower _as is_ and spend resources elsewhere? Something about his claustrophobia and seeing the night sky?"

"So did I."

Varric scratched the side of his neck thoughtfully. "Hawke."

"Hawke," Malika agreed.

"Can you blame her for wanting a complete roof overhead?"

"No. But then she doesn't have to endure Ser Morris complaining about the roof tile market in Halamshiral or Sherice about his workmen being pressganged into other projects." Or Cook demanding that Hawke stay out of the kitchen's limited tea supplies. Or Harding reporting that Hawke was commandeering her scouts without consultation. Or Josephine frowning over the unattractive shield bearing some kind of Kirkwall heraldry that had appeared on the wall of the War Room. Or Cabot grumbling that the tavern was overrun with people wanting to meet Hawke, instead of getting their work done. Or paying for drinks.

Malika started to tap her foot in annoyance before she forced herself to stop. But Varric's perceptive eyes noticed anyway, and warmed as he smiled at her.

"I'll take care of it."

She sighed in relief. "I was hoping you would say that. It's not that I don't appreciate—"

"Say no more, fearless leader. Hawke is used to having things, erm, a certain way. And Cullen is a smart enough man to choose his battles."

Malika's Carta instincts rebelled at the notion of the commander of her forces choosing to follow his lover's instructions over her own. Even if it was just . . . roof tiles. "These aren't the sort of problems I should be spending my time on."

Varric reached down into the scrubby brush at his feet and plucked a single daisy growing among the weeds of the fallow garden. "I'll take care of it," he repeated, holding out the flower to her.

She eyed it warily for a moment before taking it from his hand, being careful not to let her fingers brush his. "Thank you."

Varric took care of it, but in his own unique way. Malika detected no interruption in the work on Cullen's tower, which proceeded steadily. But then one morning some dwarven engineers showed up at the gates of Skyhold and, with a combination of other raw materials and some ingenious alternate designs, completed the upgrades on the stables and the garden in half the time they had originally allotted. By the time Cullen's roof was done, so was the other work. Yet, the reports continued to stream in. An unauthorized and heavily bet-upon horse race, resulting in several broken bones and a concussion. Cullen forgetting more than one early-morning training session. More complaints from Ser Morris, this time about the price of bathtubs in Val Royeaux.

Varric seemingly had managed the roof problem without having to manage the Hawke problem. Clever sod. Malika became certain when Cullen showed up one afternoon for their meeting with a black eye and a nervous tic.

He tried to play it down at first, standing with his bruised lefthand side away from Malika as she worked at her desk. He droned on for a few minutes about scouting reports from Crestwood and some bandit activity until she sighed and sat back in her chair.

"So what happened?" she asked.

"W-what do you mean?"

"The eye, Cullen. If it was just a bruise from a training exercise, you wouldn't be trying to hide it."

"Oh, it wasn't . . . I mean, there was nothing—"

"Out with it."

"There may have been . . . a slight scuffle and exchange of words."

She remained silent until he felt compelled to add, "In the Great Hall. W-with some of the Orlesian nobles."

She arched an eyebrow at him and slowly the rest of the story came pouring out. Rude words from some of the sycophantic Orlesian aristocrats that had flocked to Skyhold, like flies on shit. With the world critiquing the Inquisition's every move and the stakes just getting higher, Malika knew such an altercation was inevitable. With Blackwall. Or Cassandra. Maybe even Varric if the topic was close enough to home. But not Cullen.

When he ran out of words and apologies she let him stew for a moment longer. Finally, she asked, "Hawke?"

He looked away. "Hawke," he agreed in a pained voice. "She took their inappropriate comments about our relationship very . . . personally, I'm afraid."

"Did she kill anyone?"

"What? Maker, no!" he immediately said.

"At least there's that." Malika shook her head. "Isn't Hawke a noble herself?"

"Yes, although she has been living . . . apart from society for some time."

Malika felt the corners of her mouth twitch upward at this. "I suppose that could explain a few things."

"She's trying very hard to fit in, Inquisitor. She doesn't have the advantage of the months we've spent together as an organization."

"I recognize that, Cullen, and we're appreciative that she's here and willing to help." Malika drummed her fingers on the desk. "I wonder if it might help to give her something to do. She and I don't leave for Crestwood for another week or so. Maybe you two could take a short . . . retreat in the meantime, away from Skyhold."

"Oh, I don't know that it's a good time for me leave the troops. I—"

"Cullen, we will survive without you for a few days," she interrupted. "I promise."

"You think time apart will help her adjust better to the Inquisition?"

"Yes. I think a little time away might help the Inquisition adjust better to her."

His face became stricken. "She's just not used to being part of a chain of command."

"Unless she's at the top of it." Malika smiled in understanding. "Look, Cullen, I get it. It took me some time to get used to how differently we run things here than in the Carta. And, you have been working constantly since she joined us. Go spend some time alone. Away from Skyhold."

"Well . . ." he began, starting to look tempted.

"Isn't your childhood home just to the south?"

Cullen chuckled. "You mean, _away from Skyhold_?"

"Why, yes," she said mildly. "You've earned a break. And so have we. Give Skyhold a chance to miss their living legend before we have to send her off on a mission."

"If you insist," he said, still sounding uncertain. "I'll see what she thinks."

"I do insist. And perhaps it's a good reminder for you and your visitor: that's an order from your Inquisitor."

"An order . . . to go on a date?"

Malika just smiled.

Cullen saluted. "Yes, ma'am."

Later that afternoon, Varric dropped by, a mischievous smile playing on his lips. "Sending Hawke away, huh?"

"No, I'm rewarding my commander and his girlfriend for their service."

Varric gazed at her steadily until she found she was actually blushing. "That's what I thought," he drawled. "Well, for what it's worth, you eventually get used the chaos sewn in Hawke's wake. Soon, you can't live without it."

A strange streak of jealousy suddenly shot through Malika on hearing Varric's admission. An uncomfortable feeling she would have to examine later.

"As I told Cullen, we can survive very well without it for a few days," she said.

"Oh, I know you can. But who would want to?"

She clamped her mouth shut on any hasty response she might give to his slavish devotion to _that other hero_.

"I think you could use a little more unpredictability in your life, Malika," he said in an off-hand tone, and she started at his use of her real name and not some mocking nickname. "Who knows. Maybe you should reward _yourself_ with a few days away from Skyhold," he said, holding her gaze for moment before giving her a slow wink and strolling away.

 **Fin**

 **A/N:** So now that I've finished up Fool's Errand with Hawke joining Cullen in the Inquisition, I couldn't stop imagining, and chortling to myself about, what it would be like to have Hawke suddenly at Skyhold. But I didn't expect this story to be mostly about Malika Cadash. :) I think there are more stories in this Universe to come. (and for those who might have noticed, YES, I'm afraid I've been listening to A LOT of Hamilton recently. LOL) Thanks for reading!

 **A/N2:** Update Feb 2017: I just wrote a follow up to this story, Gentle Resolve, focusing on Varric and Malika's evolving relationship.


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